4. Composition and regulatory set-up of Uzbekistan’s financial sector
This chapter describes the institutional set-up and market infrastructure of Uzbekistan’s financial sector as well as the institutional, legislative and regulatory barriers that have impeded the development of the country’s capital market. Uzbekistan’s domestic financial system is underdeveloped, dominated by state-owned banks and underutilised by the country’s citizens and potential investors. An opaque amalgamation of fragmented legislative and regulatory acts and the lack of a centralised platform for securities trading reduce the accessibility of the market to potential participants, and the products permitted by current legislation do not correspond with emerging demands. Although recent reforms have addressed some of the problems that have stunted the development of Uzbekistan’s capital market, there are several opportunities available to the government to boost the supply of and demand for securities on the domestic market and, in so doing, encourage the development of a healthier, more dynamic capital market.
Uzbekistan’s financial sector remains dominated by large state-owned banks despite the emergence of a wider array of banks and non-bank credit institutions since Uzbekistan’s economy began liberalising in 2017. High levels of employment in the informal sector and predominantly cash-based economy act as barriers to financial market development.
The government has embarked on a sweeping privatisation programme and aims to increase the private sector’s share in the banking sector to 60% by 2026. Initial attempts at bank privatisation have been delayed due to external factors, but the government should continue to pursue its privatisation goal.
Recent institutional, legal and regulatory reforms such as the Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 have liberalised Uzbekistan’s financial sector, but it continues to suffer from ineffective market facilitation as well as limited supply of and demand for securities.
Uzbekistan should simplify the opaque and fragmented legislative and regulatory framework governing the financial system and adopt a consolidated law on capital markets.
Uzbekistan should adopt a coordinated long-term development financing strategy, continue to develop the pool of domestic qualified capital market experts, harmonise the country’s two securities trading platforms and remove legislative and regulatory barriers to the adoption of more financial instruments, notably Islamic financial instruments, and potential issuers of green bonds, including subnational governments.
The number of actors active in Uzbekistan’s financial sector has expanded markedly in recent years, but the state still accounts for the vast majority of assets and provides most long-term financing, which is particularly important for the infrastructure investments necessary for Uzbekistan’s green transition. Since market liberalisation began in 2017, the number of financial institutions operating in Uzbekistan has gradually expanded (see Table 4.1). Non-bank credit organisations, mainly microcredit organisations, have emerged particularly quickly, while new private banks and insurance companies more gradually. Currently, there are 33 commercial banks in Uzbekistan, of which 4 are purely state-owned, 8 are partially state-owned, 10 are joint-stock commercial banks, 6 are banks with foreign ownership and 5 are private banks. Compared to other countries in Central Asia, Uzbekistan has more operating banks than all other countries in the region. 23 banks operate in Kyrgyzstan, 14 in Tajikistan and 11 in Turkmenistan. Kazakhstan, even though it has a larger economy than Uzbekistan, has only 22 operating banks, although the level of state participation in Kazakhstan’s banking system is considerably smaller. Only one of Kazakhstan’s banks is purely state-owned, while 14 have foreign participation. Although Uzbekistan is home to the most banks in Central Asia, given its population of over 35 million, there are relatively few banks in the country.
However, while the government has announced plans to increase the private sector’s share in the economy and begun privatising state-owned banks, several obstacles remain. Uzbekistan’s economy is characterised by high levels of informality. As much as 34.5% percent of the working population was employed informally in 2022 (Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction, 2023[2]), and as of 2021 only 70% of the adult population had bank or mobile-money accounts (Central Bank of Uzbekistan, 2022[1]), leading to the emergence of a predominantly cash-based economy. This high level of informality represents a significant barrier to the development of the financial market, including capital markets, which by nature need to be highly regulated. The share of informal securities exchange market in country’s total capital market is very high (76.1% in 2022). Moreover, the high level of inflation has led to a high degree of dollarisation of the economy, since it has incentivised economic agents to hold foreign currency (mostly USD), rather than local currency-based financial instruments, as a protection against inflation and the devaluation of the local currency. High inflation also makes capital markets too expensive for issuers, whereas state-owned banks provide loans at subsidised rates. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are still the primary actors in many sectors of Uzbekistan’s economy.
4.1.1. Banking sector
Uzbekistan’s banking sector accounted for 69.7% of country’s GDP1 by the end of September 2022. Large state-owned and state-controlled banks continue to dominate the country’s banking sector. In fact, just five state-owned banks manage 61% of all assets in the banking sector. The National Bank of Uzbekistan alone accounts for almost a quarter (23.6%) of assets, with the remaining four managing about a tenth of total assets each (SanoatQurilishBank, 11.2%; Asaka Bank, 9.2%; Agrobank, 8.5%; Ipoteka Bank, 8.5%). In recent years, state-owned banks’ share of assets, loans and total capital has decreased slightly. As of October 2022, they accounted for 79% of total assets (compared to 84% in 2019), 78% of capital (87% in 2019) and 84% of all loans (88% in 2019) (Central Bank of Uzbekistan, 2022[1]).
The Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Uzbekistan Fund for Reconstruction and Development control and subsidise Uzbekistan’s state-owned banks, which in turn support the government’s economic priorities primarily through government-guaranteed loans and equity investments offered to specific sectors, particularly to SOEs. This has disincentivised Uzbekistan’s banks from providing commercial services to the private sector (UNDP, 2021[3]). The state-owned banks are largely disconnected from the capital markets and their dominance in the sector has contributed to low levels of financial intermediation, which constrains access to finance in Uzbekistan.
As a result of high inflation following Uzbekistan’s abolishment of its exchange rate peg in 2017, the financial system has come to rely heavily on foreign currencies, particularly USD. Dollarisation of loans reached 62.3% in December 2017 but has gradually fallen since (47.9% by July 2022). Credit lines from foreign banks and international finance institutions have funded most foreign currency lending resulting in high external borrowing rates (estimated at 20% of total liabilities and 35% of banks’ foreign currency liabilities as of April 2022). The repayment of external borrowings is manageable for most banks, as maturities are linked to schedules of sub-loans (Central Bank of Uzbekistan, 2022[1]).
In Uzbekistan, like in many countries worldwide, the ratio of non-performing loans to total gross loans in the banking sector surged during the pandemic from a pre-pandemic rate of just over 1% to reach 5.8% in October 2021, but the ratio has since decreased (4.9% by August 2022). Even in these conditions, banks continue to grow quickly. Nominal lending grew 11% over the first nine months of 2022, and banks have increasingly focused on expanding long-term financing. The bulk of new corporate loans was issued with grace periods for investment purposes and are not amortising yet, which means that asset quality is largely untested at most banks (Central Bank of Uzbekistan, 2022[1]).
The dominance of state-owned banks restricts financial intermediation and the development of the financial sector more broadly. To encourage the emergence of a more diversified, dynamic banking sector, Uzbekistan has embarked on a large-scale privatisation process and broad reforms to the country’s banking sector. Following the removal of currency controls in 2017, the government amended banking legislation in 2017 to redefine the Central Bank’s role, emphasising price stability and oversight, and allow foreign investors to own up to 5% of domestic banks. Rules relating to anti-money laundering, currency transactions, settlements and increased availability of banking services were also adopted (Miroshnikova, 2022[4]).
In 2020, Uzbekistan approved the Strategy for the Reform of the Banking System 2020-2025, which focuses on reducing the state’s role in banking and increase the share of assets held by private banks from 21% to 60% by 2025. The government aims to attract strategic investors to some state-owned banks and divest from others. Governance of state-owned banks is also being improved with the appointment of independent, professional supervisory board members. According to the strategy, the National Bank of Uzbekistan, Agrobank and Mikrokreditbank will remain state-owned banks to ensure regional availability of banking services during the transformation and implement mechanisms to support investment projects (Government of Uzbekistan, 2020[5]).
The strategy identifies 9 state-owned banks for full or partial privatisation. The state aimed to divest its entire stake in two small state-owned banks, Poytaxt Bank and UzAgroExport Bank, through an open tender process. Seven larger state-owned banks – Ipoteka Bank, SanoatQurilishBank (SQB), Asaka Bank, Aloqa Bank, Asia Alliance Bank, Qishloq Qurilish Bank (QQB) and Turon Bank – are also slated for privatisation in the coming years (Government of Uzbekistan, 2020[5]).
In September 2021, Expobank, a Russian bank, signed a memorandum with a view to acquire Poytaxt bank. The acquisition of UzAgroExport Bank by Sovkombank, another Russian bank, for USD 4 million in February 2022 was cancelled due to international sanctions resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (UzDaily, 2022[6]).
In March 2022, a presidential decree set an ambitious timeline for the launch of initial public offerings (IPOs) and sale of state shares of some of these banks. Qishloq Qurilish Bank’s IPO was scheduled to take place by October 2022 but has been delayed by uncertain market conditions. According to the schedule, shares of other state-owned banks, including SQB and Asaka Bank (the two largest state-owned banks slated for privatisation), are to be sold over the course of 2023 (Government of Uzbekistan, 2022[7]).
Preparations have already begun for the privatisation of SQB. The International Finance Cooperation (IFC) has been cooperating with SQB since 2018. In 2022, the IFC and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) issued pre-privatisation convertible loans to SQB, which can be converted into an equity stake (Aris, 2021[8]; AkiPress, 2022[9]; EBRD, 2022[10]). SQB is seeking to position itself as Uzbekistan’s ‘green bank’, focusing on investments in sustainable infrastructure and climate solutions. In this regard, SQB has received support from the Agence française de développement (AFD), which has begun financing the development of SQB’s green portfolio with a EUR 30 million loan (AFD, 2022[11]).
Other privatisation efforts have been marked by stops and starts. OTP Bank, a Hungarian bank, offered to acquire the government’s 75% stake in Ipoteka Bank in September 2021, but later shelved the deal due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In November 2022, OTP Bank announced that it had restarted the acquisition process (Lillis, 2022[12]).
4.1.2. Other actors: Non-bank credit institutions, lessors, insurance companies and pension funds
The number of non-bank credit institutions has doubled since 2017. The market segment consists of microfinance organisations, pawnshops and the Uzbekistan Mortgage Refinancing Company, which was created by the Ministry of Finance (now the Ministry of Economy and Finance) in 2019 to provide long-term funding to mortgage lenders and increase the availability and affordability of mortgage loans to low- and middle-income households.
Although these institutions, particularly microcredit organisations, play an important role in providing access to credit for individuals and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they are not involved in the long-term financing of infrastructure projects that underpins the transformation of Uzbekistan’s energy, transport and industry sectors. In the near future, the Uzbekistan Mortgage Refinancing Company plans to issue mortgage-backed securities on the domestical capital market, which could contribute to the fledgling market’s development (UNDP, 2021[3]).
The leasing and insurance markets are poorly developed and often the entities of these markets are subsidiaries of banks or otherwise connected to them. In many countries, insurance companies are important institutional investors and buyers of securities and other investment assets. In Uzbekistan, however, the insurance sector is in a fledgling state, providing relatively short-term protection policies rather than long-term investment policies. Due to a lack of long-term investable capital, insurance companies therefore prefer bank deposits, real estate and bank shares and eschew long-term investments in other financial instruments. Uzbekistan’s national pension fund is similarly inactive in long-term investments, allocating most of its capital to government securities, term deposits and loans (UNDP, 2021[3]).
4.1.3. Stock exchanges and trading platforms
In Uzbekistan, securities trade on two distinct exchanges. The fragmented nature of the market leads to higher transaction costs since investors are faced with two trading platforms with different regulators and platform interfaces to trade in different assets (ADB, 2021[13]). Government bonds and foreign currencies, by far the largest category by trading volume, trade on the Uzbekistan Republican Currency Exchange subject to regulatory oversight from the Central Bank, which also acts as the settlement bank. Listed equities and corporate bonds, on the other hand, trade on the “Toshkent” Republican Stock Exchange (UZSE), regulated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of Uzbekistan, a commercial bank, serves as the settlement bank for trades on the UZSE. Until recently, a third much smaller over-the-counter platform, Elsis Savdo, traded unlisted securities, but it had its licence revoked in early 2023 in preparation for the launch of UZSE’s over-the-counter trading platform (Yerzikov, 2023[14]).
To comply with the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the Bank for International Settlement’s Principles for financial market infrastructures, money settlements should be conducted in central bank money rather than commercial bank money, unless credit and liquidity risk are strictly controlled and minimised (Bank for International Settlements and IOSCO, 2012[15]). According to the Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023, the Central Bank, by providing the Uzbekistan Central Securities Depository with access to its Real-Time Gross Settlement system, will soon become the settlement bank for corporate securities as well, bringing settlements procedure in line with international principles (Government of Uzbekistan, 2021[16]).
There is no harmonised platform or combined depository for trading in government and corporate securities, since the UZSE and the Republican Currency Exchange maintain separate systems. This dual-track market infrastructure raises transaction costs for investors and hampers capital market development (ADB, 2021[13]). To address this, the Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 foresees stronger programmatic links between UZSE and the Republican Currency Exchange to better harmonise market infrastructure while bolstering the market surveillance system to prevent manipulative or illegal trading practices (Government of Uzbekistan, 2021[16]). Ideally, a shared or seamlessly linked platform should be developed to reduce transaction costs for potential market participants. Moreover, the Uzbekistan Central Securities Depository should be reorganised and strengthened to consolidate all capital market assets (including shares, government and corporate bonds, equities and other financial instruments) to streamline both pre- and post-trade infrastructure across the capital market.
4.2.1. Legal and regulatory reforms
In addition to recent institutional reforms, Uzbekistan has sought to reform its capital market regulations. Uzbekistan’s existing capital market legal framework is limited in scope, and does not align with international standards, such as the IOSCO Principles of Securities Regulation. The government frequently issues presidential and ministerial decrees to fill in gaps in the current Securities Market Law, resulting in fragmented, unwieldly amalgamation. The Asian Development Bank identified the country’s “opaque legal and regulatory framework” as a major contributor to ineffective market facilitation in Uzbekistan (ADB, 2021[17]). A raft of 2020 reforms aimed to compile existing laws, acts and decrees into a comprehensive capital markets code and to remove barriers to prospective foreign and domestic investors in domestic securities (Dettoni, 2019[18]). Uzbekistan’s Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 identifies the large number of legal and regulatory acts as one of the barriers to the development of the capital market. The Programme tasks the Ministry of Finance (now the Ministry of Economy and Finance), the Central Bank and the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade (now the Ministry of Investments, Industry and Foreign Trade) to consolidate existing legislative and regulatory acts into a draft Capital Markets Law based on IOSCO principles (Government of Uzbekistan, 2021[16]).
Uzbekistan’s financial ecosystem also lacks an effective interbank money market. Since the country’s dominant state-owned banks receive subsidised public funds and the smaller private banks depend predominantly on deposit funding, there are few open-market operations to act as market-based benchmarks to indicate money market prices. In their absence, the Central Bank’s refinancing rate is the only money market price indicator. In addition to the ongoing privatisation process, which will reduce the state’s role in subsidising the largest banks, the government should seek to introduce appropriate instruments, such as repurchase agreements and currency swaps, to foster the development of the capital market (ADB, 2021[13]).
Similarly, the debt capital market is immature and lacks liquidity and a sufficient volume of issuances and trades. Most of Uzbekistan’s government bonds are short-dated, with only three longer-term issuances to date. Moreover, bond issuances occur without a pre-announced auction calendar, which prevents potential bidders from participating, and auction cut-off yields follow the Central Bank’s policy rate, which implies that bidding is not market-based. All of these factors impede the formation of a credible government bond yield curve, which in turn hinders the appropriate pricing of corporate bonds (ADB, 2021[13]). The Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 addresses some of these concerns by establishing an auction calendar that schedules regular issuances of 3- and 5-year bonds to support the emergence of an effective yield curve.
The Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 sets targets aimed at increasing the total volume of free securities to 5% of GDP by 2023. To increase supply, the government aims to boost the capitalisation of the capital market to UZS 45 trillion and increase the share of securities in the financing of national- and regional-level investment programmes to 5%. To increase demand, the government is focusing on the accessibility of the capital market through active integration with international financial markets, extensive use of modern information and communication technologies and the use of advanced approaches successfully tested abroad. Legislative and regulatory reforms will aim to create the necessary conditions for the active financing of investments aimed at the development of the stock market through the introduction of international best practices, the elimination of unnecessary barriers, restrictions and excessive regulation of the sphere and the development. Legislative changes will also seek to ensure the integrity of capital market regulation, prevention of systemic risks with the introduction of appropriate international criteria and experience (Government of Uzbekistan, 2021[16]).
An additional binding constraint on demand for Uzbekistan’s capital market is the lack of qualified personnel. The Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 targets the participation of 40 thousand people in activities aimed at improving financial literacy and skills among minority investors, other capital market participants and the general population. The introduction or improvement of training and retraining programmes for capital market specialists and the strengthening of conditions to attract domestic and foreign specialists to the market are also envisioned (Government of Uzbekistan, 2021[16]).
A 2022 package of capital market reforms also set rules on the issuance of securities on local and foreign stock markets aimed at increasing the number of placements on the “Toshkent” Republican Stock Exchange. Beginning in April 2022, issuers could place shares on foreign stock exchanges only after a preliminary placement on UZSE or as part of a simultaneous placement on domestic and international exchanges (Government of Uzbekistan, 2022[19]).
Expanding the range of available financial products
Contributing to the lack of supply of securities, Article 96 of Uzbekistan’s Civil Code and the law “On the Securities Market” narrowly define securities as promissory notes (bills of exchange), shares, bonds, savings (deposit) certificates, receipts, depository receipts and treasury obligations. Recent reforms have introduced new categories of securities, including exchange bonds and certain derivative securities, but other potential instruments still have no legal basis in Uzbekistan. Current legislation does not include mortgage-backed securities nor Islamic financial instruments, such as sukuk, a bond-like instrument. In Uzbekistan, a predominantly Muslim country, approximately 27% of citizens do not have a bank account for reasons related to their religion (UNDP, 2021[20]), indicating that there could be significant demand for Islamic financial instruments, including sukuks (see 5.4 Sukuks). OECD discussions in 2022 with representatives of the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and UZSE confirmed that there is considerable demand for the introduction of Islamic finance instruments on the domestic market. Such an untapped market could help Uzbekistan stimulate domestic demand in securities. The Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 calls for reforms leading to the introduction of mortgage-backed securities, sukuks and other financial instruments.
Although subnational governments in Uzbekistan account for 56% of total national spending, Article 142 of the Budget Code forbids them from issuing debt instruments (Government of Uzbekistan, 2013[21]). In 2020, an exception was issued for the City of Tashkent to issue a USD 500 million debt instrument on the local market (Gazeta.Uz, 2020[22]), but the pilot project did not materialise because the Ministry of Finance refused to underwrite the issuance. On the supply side, this restriction reduces the number of potential issuers of securities, and on the demand side, it prevents local residents from investing directly in projects managed by their subnational governments.
Expanding the pool of potential investors and market participants
Until recently, Uzbekistan’s tax policies disincentivised participation in securities trading. Uzbekistan levied a tax on dividends and interest accrued from investment in securities, which reduced available return for potential investors. In 2022, the taxation rules regarding dividends were amended, exempting accrued interest on bonds and dividends from some shares and setting a 5% tax rate on income derived from dividends from other shares. In place of profit or income tax, the seller instead pays a fee amounting to 0.3% of the total transaction amount (Government of Uzbekistan, 2022[19]).
Uzbekistan only has a small pool of institutional investors (see 3.2.2 Domestic private financial flows) and they largely do not participate in Uzbekistan’s capital market. The Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023 seeks to increase their participation through a number of legislative and regulatory reforms. The government plans to encourage the participation of Uzbekistan’s pension fund by establishing a new pension fund development and regulation agency. It also plans to divest from state insurance companies, bring their regulations in line with international principles and broaden their investment mandates (Government of Uzbekistan, 2022[19]).
4.2.2. Institutional set-up
An overarching shortcoming is a lack of strategic direction from the government. Uzbekistan has taken a growing interest in the development of the domestic capital market, particularly with the adoption of the Programme for Capital Market Development 2021-2023. However, there is still no coordinated long-term strategy that sets out the state’s priorities for capital market development and guides the implementation of financial market development reforms.
In terms of institutional set-up, rapid and occasionally contradictory institutional reforms have also been undertaken. Notably, the Capital Market Development Agency (CMDA) was established in 2019, only to be abolished two years later, with its functions transferring to the Department for Capital Market Development of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The Department is now tasked with implementing policies on the development and regulation of the securities market, protecting the rights of investors and monitoring legal compliance of the market. According to a 2021 Resolution, Uzbek companies will be allowed to list their shares on foreign stock exchanges by 2023 provided that the initial placement occurs on a domestic stock exchange (Grata International, 2021[23]). This change, along with proposed changes to the securities exchange platforms in Uzbekistan (see 4.1.3 Stock exchanges and trading platforms), could partially address concerns about ineffective market facilitation and the limited supply of securities.
The number of state institutions involved in the regulation of the financial sector has decreased following the 2021 subordination of the Capital Market Development Agency’s functions to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the 2022 transfer of the Insurance Market Development Agency’s mandate to the same ministry. This has reduced the fragmentation of regulatory oversight among Uzbekistan’s state bodies, but regulatory functions remain split between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Central Bank, and their mandates overlap on the regulation of government securities, by far the largest asset class. Following the recent institutional changes, the Ministry of Finance regulates the pension system, auditing, the insurance market and corporate securities (and therefore the “Toshkent” Republican Stock Exchange). The Central Bank, on the other hand, regulates the banking sector, the currency market (and therefore the Uzbekistan Republican Currency Exchange) and non-bank credit organisations (Nazirov, 2020[24]). Given that the Ministry of Economy and Finance has an ownership stake (ranging from 10% in Asaka Bank to 97% in Ipoteka Bank) in all but one major state-owned bank, conflicts of interest could arise. The remainder of the state’s ownership stake in Uzbekistan’s bank falls to the Uzbekistan Fund for Reconstruction and Development (ranging from 24% in Qishloq Qurilish Bank to 88% in Turon Bank, with stakes in all but one major state-owned bank), which does not have a regulatory role (Miroshnikova, 2022[4]).
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Note
← 1. GDP for 2022 is projected as 105,4% of GDP of 2021